Spring Cleaning And Baby Proofing
by Solo Ensemble
Summary: Complete fluff. Jason makes changes to Penthouse II, which Spinelli finds personally distressing.


**Spring Cleaning & Baby-Proofing**

Spinelli snuffled in his sleep and turned his face into one of the throw pillows when Jason entered the penthouse. "_I don't care what you say, Harry Potter is so magical realism. _"

Jason rolled his eyes and held the door open for Max, Milo, Trey, Ritchie, and Johnny, who immediately moved in and fanned out into the room. Great, the little nerd was having one of his Harry Pot-Head dreams again. And he was drooling all over the couch.

"What do you want us to start with?" Ritchie wanted to know. "The pool table?"

Jason blanched. "No, no, that stays. Uh, start clearing the shit off the tables. Those vases, those pictures, that…thing. All of it has to go."

Max and Milo smirked, knowing full well that "the shit" referred to all the trinkets and knick-knacks and do-dads that Sam had bought with her ex-fiancé's money to decorate the penthouse. "Do you want us to put it in storage, or…?"

Jason snorted as he stripped off his leather jacket and hung it on the closet doorknob. "Get rid of it. Throw it in the dumpster out back."

"Good deal," Johnny muttered, picking up an ugly brown pot-like vase. "Do these little tables stay?"

Jason considered it as Spinelli turned over onto his stomach and buried into the cushions, trying to block out the noise that threatened to rouse him from his slumber. "No, get rid of them. Coffee table, too. It's too high, and the edges are too sharp. Get it all out of here."

Ritchie nodded and easily hefted one of the end tables, tucking it under his arm as if it were nothing. "Dumpster or storage?"

"I told you – everything in the dumpster."

Spinelli let out a thin sigh and curled his knees up to his chest. "_…The best part of MySpace is getting to delete Tom From MySpace from my friends. _"

The men all ignored him as they swept through the penthouse. Trey had brought up a few boxes from the basement levels and he and Milo systematically tossed all of the glass trinkets into them, then moved on to the pictures on the mantle.

"These, too, Boss?"

"Yeah." Jason didn't even bother looking up as he opened up his desk drawers and pulled everything out, stacking it neatly in the corner by the closet. Lord knew that he couldn't see those pictures anyway – he had no idea why Sam insisted on putting them up on his mantle.

"Leave the pictures of Michael and Morgan and Emily?"

This time he did look up. "Yeah, don't touch those."

Something shattered in the box, but Trey didn't bother to apologize; they already knew that Jason wouldn't care. In fact, it would probably have been more economical to break all the stuff so that it took up less room…

"Hey, Jason, can I stomp-"

"Yes."

Trey tossed a smaller glass trinket to himself and then tossed it over his shoulder into the box, waiting for the satisfying crash. "Nice."

Spinelli groaned at the clinks and crashes and cuddled a pillow against his chest. "_No, an unfunded mandate is when two guys go out for pizza and both forget their wallets. _"

Ritchie glanced over at the sleeping teenager. "Oh. I thought it was when a candidate-"

"Don't listen to him," Jason interrupted absently. "He's high again."

"I thought you said the penthouse had been chemical-free for two months now. You kept a tally on your calendar at the office."

Jason arched a brow. "If he's not high, what other excuse you got?"

Trey shrugged. "He's Spinelli."

They watched as their boss considered it. "Yeah, I guess."

"Does the desk go, too, Jason?" Johnny wanted to know as he eyed his boss withdraw all of his files. "You're getting rid of it?"

He nodded and dropped the last pile of folders onto the floor in the corner. "Yeah, it goes. Put it in storage, get rid of it, whatever."

"But you work there," Milo pointed out. "You always worked there."

"I have an office upstairs," he replied, clearly preoccupied as he studied the vast number of files containing sensitive information that now sat in front of his hall closet. "That's where all my work should stay, anyway."

"I'm going to get all this broken glass down to the dumpster," Trey announced, stacking two boxes of Sam's old decoration pieces. "Then I can come sweep the place to make sure there aren't any loose shards around, if you like."

But Jason shook his head. "Don't bother. I'm having the place refloored and carpeted tonight."

The guards exchanged glances, a little unsure as to what prompted their boss's sudden desire to clean house. "Uh, Jason, is there any particular reason-"

"_And the side effect of having big radiators in our head was the development of human culture_."

Ritchie had to resist the urge to kick the couch. "Is he ever off?"

Jason grimaced and slowly shook his head. "No."

"Maybe it would be easier to dismantle the desk," Johnny suggested after staring at the behemoth for a moment. "I'm going to go get the toolkit from Sonny's penthouse."

Milo couldn't help but let out a laugh. "Mister Corinthos has a toolkit? Seriously?"

The guard grinned as he moved past Jason toward the door. "Actually, it's mine. I stashed it in his penthouse in case I ever needed it. Carly found it once and said something about how handy her husband was and I almost pissed my pants laughing."

Even Jason had to smirk at that. "Didn't he once cut his hand with a screwdriver?"

Trey made a face. "How the hell do you cut your hand with a screwdriver?"

Johnny shrugged, one foot in the hall. "I don't know, but Sonny found a way to. Be right back, then we'll get it moved on out."

Trey followed after him with his two boxes of broken glassware as Milo dragged another large box over to the display case in the corner of the bookshelf. It had been there since Courtney lived there; she had picked it out herself and stocked it with china plates. When Sam moved in, she threw out the plates and filled it with crystalline figures and the like.

"Do these little things go, too?"

Jason nodded absently. "The whole thing. Get the whole thing out of here."

"I'll dismantle that after John and I do the desk," Max offered. "I always thought it looked pretty simple – I bet it won't even take me five minutes to do it."

Milo arched a brow at his brother. "You've been wanting to take that thing apart all this time?"

Max shrugged. "Not so much – it's just that I thought that if I had to, it'd be pretty easy, that's all."

"What'd be pretty easy?" Johnny wanted to know as he returned with a big black toolbox and hiked up his pants in order to crouch by the desk.

"Taking the display case apart," his friend answered, heading over to help Jason and Johnny with the desk.

"We'll do that after this," the Irishman told him, handing Jason a Phillips flathead while he grabbed a four-point for himself. "Okay, hold this up, okay? I'm going to screw it out from this side, and Jason's going to undo that part, so just make sure it doesn't crash down on us."

"_There was a time in my life when I coveted parallel octaves…_"

"Can I please smother him?"

Jason actually appeared to consider it, but finally shook his head. "No, I've got him working on something for me, and I need him alive to finish it."

"After that, though?"

"He's fair game."

They worked quickly and quietly after that. Johnny, Max, and Jason smoothly dismantled the desk and piled the different parts up so the men could carry them out. Max and Johnny then got started on the display case that Milo had just cleaned out, and Milo and Trey made another trip out to the dumpster then came back to help Ritchie get the desk out of the way, then the display case.

Spinelli slept through it all, unconsciously making sure to add in his sleepily mumbled comments culled from whatever strange dream he was having.

"_It's not a hickey. I was playing Scrabble and a piece flew up and hit me in the neck. _"

"He leads a very abnormal life."

Ritchie stepped back into the penthouse after having dropped everything off in the dumpster and looked around. "Okay, what else?"

"Everything," Jason replied, sweeping an arm around. "Everything goes. Just get everything out of here, I'm done with it."

"You're not…leaving town again, are you?" Milo asked hesitantly. "I mean, with everything that's happened, you can't just…pick up and leave. Jake and Miss Webber-"

"I'm not leaving," Jason assured him before he could say anything else and embarrass them all. "That's not what I'm doing. But I still need everything out of here."

Johnny shrugged and pushed his sleeves back up, waving Max over to the couch where Spinelli was breathing slowly and lightly. "Okay, you heard him. Help me lift this thing."

Jason crossed his arms and stood back as the two men gripped the armrests and lifted, slowly carrying the couch out into the couch. The movements jostled Spinelli, who stopped mumbling about the Communist party and jolted straight up into a sitting position.

"I—what—who—" He looked around, blinking quickly as he absorbed the fact that his couch was airborne and moving and that everyone was standing around watching. "Stone Cold!"

Jason shrugged, trying not to smile. "Sorry, Spinelli. Everything goes."

----------------

"Go up to your room."

Spinelli scowled at his mentor as he sat in the middle of the empty and newly carpeted living room, holding a pillow from their old couch close to his chest. "No. I miss our stuff."

"Spinelli, get your ass upstairs."

"I won't," he persisted with a pout. "The penthouse is so empty. Why'd you have to throw away all our stuff?"

"Spinelli…"

"You almost threw _me_ away!" he accused, glaring up at Jason. "Me! The Jackal, of all people! And for what? I don't approve of this spring-cleaning, Stone Cold, not one bit."

"Did you finish putting in those electric outlet blocks and setting the order for new locks?"

"Yes, but-"

"And did you coordinate security measures with Max?"

"Yeah, but-"

"And did you clean your room and get rid of the pot under your floorboards?"

"How did you know-"

"Spinelli. Did you throw out the pot?"

"Yes, but-"

"Good," Jason nodded curtly, crossing his arms over his chest. "Then get your ass upstairs and stay there."

Spinelli's lips settled into a thin line. "I'm hungry."

"No, you're not."

"Yes, I am, I'm starving."

"You just had a Tart-Pop and a Lunchables, so, no, you're not starving. Quit making excuses and get upstairs."

"But I'm thirsty."

"The tap upstairs is fine."

"But it's the bathroom tap."

"It's the same water," he growled, feeling his frustration build. "Now get upstairs."

"But I wanted to watch my TV show."

"Download it on your laptop like you always do – _just get upstairs. _"

"But-"

"SPINELLI!"

"Fine, fine!" he yelped, scrambling to his feet. "I don't know what you're so upset about. And if you talk to the Little Stone Cold like that, he'll run away from home, I'm telling you. You have to be gentle, Stone Cold."

"Get upstairs before I make mobility impossible for you."

"Father of the Year," the boy grumbled, sprinting up the stairs to the safety of his room. "The medal's in the mail."

Jason shook his hair and waited until he heard the fall of footsteps fade. "…No sitting on the landing!"

He heard Spinelli huff and then heard him shuffle up to his room. It was only until Jason heard the satisfying slam of the door that he let out a sigh of relief. Glancing at the clock on the wall, he rubbed his palms together and looked around the penthouse once more before a hesitant knock on the front door had him nearly tripping over his feet to answer it.

"Hey," he got out, wrenching the door open to find Elizabeth hesitantly shuffling her feet in the hallway. "Come on in."

She stepped inside carefully, as if measuring her steps, but stopped when she saw the empty penthouse. "Jason, what happened? Are you…" Her eyes widened in horror and she whirled on him. "Are you leaving?"

"No, no," he quickly assured her, taking her hands out of habit when he saw the surprise and just the barest hint of accusation in her expressive eyes. "No, I'm not leaving. I just…got rid of everything. New stuff's coming tonight."

She nodded absently, still looking around. He wasn't kidding when he said he got rid of it all. "I…Er, what did you want to see me about?"

Jason heard the slow creak of the bedroom door upstairs and the soft sound of Spinelli's shoes scuffling across the carpet, but there wasn't a damn thing he could do now about the boy's irritating habit of eavesdropping.

His hands still holding hers, Jason looked down at Elizabeth and virtually demanded that her gaze meet his. "I wanted to talk to you," he got out softly, trying not to wince when he heard the tell-tale creak of Spinelli sitting down on one of the stairs safely out of view.

"About what?"

Jason licked his lips and gave her hands a small squeeze. "I want you and the boys to move in with me. For good. I want us to be a family, here."


End file.
